Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Topic Last Modified: 2012-07-23

In Exchange 2010 SP1 and later, you can use archive policies to automatically move mailbox items to personal (on-premises) or cloud-based archives. Archive policies are retention tags that use the Move to Archive retention action.

Exchange Setup creates a retention policy called Default Archive and Retention Policy. This policy has a default policy tag (DPT) assigned that moves items to the archive mailbox after two years. The policy also includes a number of personal tags that users can apply to folders or mailbox items to automatically move or delete messages. If a mailbox doesn’t have a retention policy assigned when it’s archive-enabled, the Default Archive and Retention Policy is automatically applied to it by Exchange. You can also create your own archive and retention policies and apply them to mailbox users. To learn more, see Understanding Retention Tags and Retention Policies.

You can modify retention tags included in the default policy to meet your business requirements. For example, you can modify the archive DPT to move items to the archive after three years instead of two. You can also create additional personal tags and either add them to a retention policy, including the Default Archive and Retention Policy, or allow users to add personal tags to their mailboxes from the Exchange Control Panel (ECP).

Looking for other management tasks related to archives? Check out Managing Archives.

Use the EMC to modify the default archive policy

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Messaging records management" entry in the Messaging Policy and Compliance Permissions topic.

  1. In the console tree, navigate to Organization Configuration > Mailbox.

  2. In the result pane, on the Retention Policy Tags tab, select the Default 2 year move to archive retention tag.

  3. In the action pane, click Properties.

  4. Use the General tab to view or modify the following settings:

    • Name   Use this unlabeled box at the top of the page to view or change the tag name.

    • Modified   This read-only field displays the last date and time that the retention tag was modified.

    • Tag Type   This read-only field displays the tag type.

    • Age limit for retention (days)   Click this button to specify that items be moved to archive after a certain period. By default, this setting is configured to move items to the archive after two years (730 days). To modify this setting, in the corresponding text box, type the number of days in the retention period. The range of values is from 1 through 24,855 days.

    • Action to take when the age limit is reached   Don’t modify this field for archive policies.

    • Disable this tag   Click this button to disable the tag. If a DPT or a RPT is disabled, the tag is no longer applied to the mailbox. If a personal tag is disabled, the retention period is displayed to the user as Never. If the user applies the tag to an item, the item is never moved to the user’s archive mailbox.

      Important:
      Items that have a disabled retention tag applied aren't processed by the Mailbox Assistant. If you want to prevent a tag from being applied to items, we recommend disabling the tag rather than deleting it. When you delete a tag, the tag configuration is deleted from Active Directory, and the Mailbox Assistant processes all messages to remove the deleted tag.
      Note:
      If a user applies a tag to an item believing the item will never be moved, enabling the tag later may move items the user wanted to retain in the primary mailbox.
    • Comments   Use this box to type a comment that will be displayed to Outlook and Outlook Web App users. For example, to alert users that MRM is enabled on the folder, you could type the message: "Messages are removed from this folder after 120 days." The maximum length of this comment is 255 characters. To configure localized comments, use the Set-RetentionPolicyTag cmdlet.

Use the Shell to modify archive policies

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Messaging records management" entry in the Messaging Policy and Compliance Permissions topic.

This example modifies the Default 2 year move to archive tag to move items after 1,095 days (3 years).

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Set-RetentionPolicyTag "Default 2 year move to archive" -Name "Default 3 year move to archive" -AgeLimitForRetention 1095

This example disables the Default 2 year move to archive tag.

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Set-RetentionPolicyTag "Default 2 year move to archive" -RetentionEnabled $false

This example retrieves all archive DPTs and personal tags and disables them.

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Get-RetentionPolicyTag | ? {$_.RetentionAction -eq "MoveToArchive"} | Set-RetentionPolicyTag -RetentionEnabled $false

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-RetentionPolicyTag and Get-RetentionPolicyTag.